Kiyosu Castle. The dungeon.
To call it a dungeon was generous, it was merely a wooden room converted from the ground floor of the tenshukaku. Paper walls on all four sides. Not even a proper barred cell. Owari was poor, so poor that even its prison was shabby.
Oda Nobuna sat cross-legged in the corner. Her dried golden hair puffed around her shoulders. Shinji had arranged for someone to give her a gray-blue robe to change into. The collar was tied loosely.
The sash was cinched with casual indifference, defining the line of her waist, but the hem was crumpled in a heap over her knees. She paid it no mind whatsoever. Her golden pupils were half-lowered. Her face held little expression. She had been confined in this room for five days.
Five days. The Imagawa ashigaru provided food and drink. Every meal was simple, plain rice and pickled radish, but no one gave her any trouble. She was even permitted to move freely within the room.
She was simply forbidden from leaving. Two Imagawa ashigaru stood guard outside the paper walls. But further out, Nobuna could sense it, was yōki. Most likely some lesser demon of that Shinji's Hyakki Yakō, crouching there, watching her.
She couldn't escape. And there was no need to escape. The lives of Nobuna's subordinates were all gripped in the other party's hands. Shibata Katsuie. Maeda Toshiie. Niwa Nagahide.
The remaining three or four hundred soldiers. If she fled, she herself would not die. But those people would. What gnawed at her was not this. What gnawed at her was something else.
Over these five days, her divine artifacts. Maeda Toshiie. Shibata Katsuie. The others. They had long since been released from their cells. Nobuna could sense their presence.
The power of the divine artifacts originated from the god or buddha themselves. Even after descending, the connection remained. So she knew, where they were. What state they were in. Whether they were injured. And so she knew, her people were not dead. And they seemed to be doing quite well.
Especially Shibata Katsuie. The fluctuation of that divine-artifact power was steady. Active. Even carrying an indescribable sense of ease. Like a horse that had been confined for far too long, suddenly led out onto the grasslands to run free.
Nobuna sat in the corner, staring at the sunlight filtering through the paper walls. She didn't understand. She was locked up. Her people were let out. Let out to do what?
It was at this moment that the paper door was pushed open from outside. Sunlight flooded in, making Nobuna squint. Standing in the doorway was an Imagawa ashigaru. "Lady Oda. Please follow me."
The girl let out a cold, deeply displeased huff as she rose to her feet. She brushed the creases from her knees and stepped barefoot onto the wooden floorboards of the corridor.
Out from the ground floor of the tenshukaku. Through the winding corridors. Up the stone steps. The courtyard of Kiyosu Castle's main keep lay quiet and serene beneath the afternoon sun. Pruned pine trees lined either side of the stone path, pines she herself had ordered planted just a few months ago.
They hadn't grown much yet. And then she saw it. In the open space at the very center of the courtyard, a low table had been set. A tea set rested upon it, steam curling lazily upward. Seated behind that low table, was the demon warrior in gray robes. His crimson demon eyes were looking directly at her. And on either side of him....
Nobuna's footsteps halted.
Half a step to his right, Shibata Katsuie knelt upon the ground. Her silver armor was polished to a gleaming shine. The gash on the side of her breastplate, the one Onikiri had torn open and had not been repaired, had been replaced with a fresh piece of iron. Her short reddish-brown hair was bound neatly. Her amber eyes stared straight ahead.
Her expression was solemn. Her great axe was not laid upon the ground, it stood upright at her right hand, gripped in her palm.
Half a step to his left, Maeda Toshiie also knelt. Still that short light-brown hair. Round face. Large eyes. Wearing neat, dark brown ashigaru gear. Her short sword rested beside her knee.
The posture in which they attended beside Shinji.... did not resemble prisoners. It more closely resembled… retainers.
Oda Nobuna's golden slit-pupils constricted violently. She felt it. The divine-artifact power emanating from Shibata Katsuie, was still there. That gray-iron light still swirled upon the great axe. But the direction of that power had shifted.
Originally, Shibata Katsuie's divine-artifact power had been anchored to Oda Nobuna, a projection bestowed by the descent of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, locked onto Nobuna's presence. Now, beside that anchor, an additional thread had appeared.
An impossibly fine thread. Almost imperceptible. But undeniably present. It connected to that demon warrior drinking tea behind the low table before her.
Nobuna's entire body went rigid upon the stone steps. She didn't know what methods the other party had used. But she could feel the result. Five days. Her people had been released one by one. Contacted by this yōkai. Interacted with. Spent time with. Five days was not long. But it was enough to plant a seed within the heart of a divine artifact. Especially when its master was imprisoned.
What was this called? Flaunting his power right before her very eyes? Oda Nobuna's nails dug into her palms.
What a pity she was not a modern person. Not a transmigrator. Otherwise, a certain word would surely have surfaced in her mind. A very unseemly word. This was, in a sense, NTR, right before her face.
Shinji lifted his teacup and took a sip. The thought drifted through his mind with inexplicable amusement. Watching that golden-haired girl frozen upon the stone steps, a flicker of dark mischief indeed rose in his heart.
As for what he was truly doing? It was simple. Cultivation. Cultivating divine artifacts. This was something he had long wanted to try. What a pity he had never found the opportunity. Divine artifacts were powerful. He could kill them, and it wouldn't be difficult. But he couldn't capture them without harming their lives.
The Heavenly Kings under Takeda before. The warrior maidens of the previous Uesugi's army. It was the same for all of them. Now, a perfect opportunity had presented itself.
Shibata Katsuie was a divine-artifact incarnation. Strictly speaking, her essence was not entirely human. She was a semi-living entity formed from manifested faith-power. An existence akin to a tsukumogami, granted a name by a god or buddha and transformed into a vessel.
The System classified her as a cultivable target. Over the course of five days, Shinji, on the premise that he would not harm Oda Nobuna, had gained Katsuie's most basic trust. And then, he talked with her.
Just talking. No discussion of tactics. No politics. They talked about weapons. Martial arts. Battle. The things she loved. Shibata Katsuie was a warrior. What a warrior feared most was not death, it was being misunderstood.
Oda Nobuna valued her martial prowess. But she had never once cared to ask where her skill with weapons, beyond the power of her divine artifact, truly came from. And yet this yōkai before her, had asked. Absurd to the extreme. Yet in some fleeting instant, it had touched something.
The numbers on the panel said everything.
[Shibata Katsuie: Affection 31 (Obedience)]
[First Talent Unlocked — Divine Artifact Resonance: The wielder may borrow this artifact's power to unleash a single explosive slash of faith-power. Long cooldown period.]
Thirty-one. Just barely past the threshold. Every artifact's Affection had a different starting point and a different endpoint. The same numerical value on one artifact might mean trust, while on another it was simply goodwill. But the result was positive. It was still a long way from truly making her his own.
This was only the most basic level of obedience, a stage where she was willing to listen to what he had to say. But for a divine artifact still bound to another master, to achieve this much within five days was already absurd enough. And he had done it, right before that master's "eyes."
Throughout this process, Shinji had also discovered something else. For humanoid artifacts like this, the threshold for using their Talents was actually lower than for ordinary inanimate objects. Ordinary objects had to be carried. Actually used. But an incarnate "vessel", only needed to be commanded.
In other words, as long as Shibata Katsuie remained under Shinji's command and obeyed his orders, he could use that Talent. Though, at present, this particular Talent seemed unusable for him. He couldn't exactly pick Shibata Katsuie up and swing her like a blade, could he?
Yet the next Talent, might be different. Shinji also suddenly felt the urge to gather a few more divine artifacts into his subordinate forces. But there was no rush. Opportunities would be plentiful in the future.
Nobuna still stood upon the stone steps. Her gaze remained fixed upon the scene in the courtyard. She did not speak. Not a single word. From beginning to end.... silence.
The fire in her eyes blazed fiercely. But her lips were pressed into a deathly tight line. Katsuie felt her lord's gaze. Within her amber eyes was an unspoken weight, guilt. Confusion. And something else, indefinable. But she did not rise and return to Nobuna's side.
She remained seated where she was. Motionless. Not because she didn't want to go back. But because the other party had promised not to harm her lord. And her lord, at this moment, had truly not been harmed.
Nobuna stood there a while longer. Then she turned. She descended the stone steps. She retraced the path she had come. Back to that paper-walled wooden room on the ground floor of the tenshukaku. Her back was straight. Her steps were steady. She did not look back at anyone. The paper door slid shut from within.
Silence lingered in the courtyard for a long moment. At last, Katsuie lowered her head. Her amber eyes fell upon the great axe at her side. The gray-iron light swirled beneath the sunlight. Silence.
Footsteps approached from beyond the courtyard. White uwagi. Crimson hakama. Black hair cascading down. Kikyō entered through the side gate of the main keep.
Her longbow was slung diagonally across her back. In her arms, she carried a small bundle of freshly picked herbs, she had gathered quite a few from the wild fields around Kiyosu Castle over the past few days. Idle hands, after all. She stopped beside the low table. She looked at the empty stone steps. Then at Shinji.
"She left?"
"Mn."
"…" Kikyō set the herbs down at the corner of the table and knelt. She poured herself a cup of tea. Took a sip. Set it down.
"When you do things like this.... the expression on your face is very strange."
Shinji raised an eyebrow. "What kind of expression?"
"A smug expression." Kikyō held her cup. On her cold, clear features, one couldn't tell if it was disdain or exasperation. It bore the distinct air of an old married couple. "Exactly the same as Yura's comb that night."
"…"
"I don't care what methods you use to win over whomever. Or who wins you over." Kikyō set down her cup. Her tone was as flat as if she were discussing the weather.
"But when you smile at someone else's blade like that, I can't help but feel you are being…" She paused, as though searching for the right word. "....Perverted."
Shinji: "…That's a bit harsh."
Kikyō didn't continue this line of conversation. She merely lifted her brows slowly. Shinji, seeing this, paused. Then, as naturally and willingly as ever, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.
Mn. As expected. That expression, when it's directed at me, is far more beautiful. Kikyō thought.
Her trust had never needed explanation. Whatever he did, she supported him. That had never changed. It was only that, on occasion, she felt it necessary to let her beloved know, that she was not blind. And that she must always, without question, be the first.
Katsuie knelt to the side. Her amber eyes glanced from one to the other. In the end, she simply lowered her head and pretended she did not exist.
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